To meet requirements of a growing communications bandwidth and to reduce power consumption of a data center, a new interconnection mode having a higher throughput, a lower delay, and lower power consumption needs to be developed. Light provides a higher bandwidth density and lower power consumption. In addition, a silicon photonic technology may be compatible with a conventional Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technique such that input and output of light may become interfaces of various computer components, such as an optical connection memory. In some existing optical interconnection technologies, computer components are interconnected in a form of a point-to-point optical fiber or waveguide. Data exchange is completed in an electrical domain, but this needs electrical-to-optical and optical-to-electrical conversion. The conversion process results in a lot of energy consumption, and causes adverse impact on a throughput and a delay of a network.
In addition, in an on-chip interconnection architecture, communication between processors is generally completed by multiple levels of switching devices cooperatively. This results in a relatively slow speed, and increases a delay in the communication. In addition, a switching device at any level may affect a communications process of the entire on-chip interconnection architecture, and a conflict and delay in the communication may easily occur.